Vinyl’s renaissance continues in an amazing, futuristic way on legendary Bay Area turntablist DJ QBert’s new album, Extraterrestria. Funded through a Kickstarter initiative that raised $128,000, the vinyl cover of Qbert’s latest effort serves as a printed DJ controller when used in conjunction with the Algoriddim DJAY app, allowing the user to scratch, mix and fade any songs they load into the software. According to Qbert, this is the world’s first interactive album packaging.
The technology for pressing the “buttons” on the gorgeous sleeve was developed by tech firm Novalia.
“We believe the future will look more like the past than the present, where beautiful old school things we love and are nostalgic about will not die as many have said,” said Novalia’s Dr. Kate Stone. “We hope to breathe life into things like books and album covers, keeping the creativity in physical products alive. We work at the interface of the digital and physical, taking the essence of the digital world and putting that digital DNA into beautiful physical objects which have intuitive touch, connectivity and data beneath the surface and are manufactured by processes such as regular print.”
According to FACT, a limited amount of albums will be available for purchase via Thud Rumble.